Both the government in Beijing and businesses from around the
country have looked for opportunities in the continent.

For some time, that was driven by insatiable Chinese demand for
commodities, which were desperately needed for a national boom in
building. But that demand is now slowing. The result is a major
change to the China-Africa trading link.

The new relationship, which far fewer people have noticed, is
highlighted in a note from Fathom Consulting emailed to clients
this week.

Around the end of last year, Africa's economies stopped being net
exporters to China and started being net importers. Since then,
the relationship has become only more dramatic.

Africa was building up a solid trade surplus with China in the
aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, running to more than $2
billion (£1.32 billion) in some months of 2014. There was a
particularly strong period from 2010 to 2014. Then it fell apart.

Africa's trade deficit with China (and by extension, China's
trade surplus with Africa) has never been bigger:

Fathom
Consulting

Here's another way of displaying that. In the chart below, you
can see China's imports from Africa outstripping exports to the
continent for the same 2010-2014 period. Then, imports from
Africa fall off a cliff:

Fathom
Consulting

In fact, Africa is now barely exporting more to China than it was
before the financial crisis began in 2008.

That means Africa is being squeezed on two fronts — it is
crunched both by the standard emerging-market story in which
dollar debts become increasingly unmanageable as the US Federal
Reserve begins to hike interest rates, and also by the tumbling
Chinese demand for commodities.